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Saturday, May 31, 2014

Obamacare premiums to soar by double-digits by 2015 in Ohio

Obamacare premiums to soar by double-digits by 2015 in Ohio


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/30/obamacare-premiums-soar-double-digits-2015-ohio/

Cancer Survivor’s Obamacare Plan Doesn’t Cover A Single Doctor In 400 Miles Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/30/cancer-survivors-obamacare-plan-doesnt-cover-a-single-doctor-in-400-miles/#ixzz33Icp2NMH

Cancer Survivor’s Obamacare Plan Doesn’t Cover A Single Doctor In 400 Miles


http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/30/cancer-survivors-obamacare-plan-doesnt-cover-a-single-doctor-in-400-miles/

Obama's Dangerous Scandal At the VA

Obama's Dangerous Scandal At the VA

05/30/14
Jacob Heilbrunn
Security, United States
The surprising thing isn't that Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki resigned today but that he didn't do so sooner. Like Kathleen Sebelius, he is another Obama administration appointee who simply lacked the management skills to run a large organization. He charitably described himself as "too trusting."  But his resignation itself won't shield President Obama himself from the political fallout of what appears to be a real scandal at the VA as opposed to the manufactured one of Benghazi. With 42 VA hospitals under investigation for falsifying patient records, Democrats are rightly worried that this debacle, which signals a lack of accountability and big government running amok, will severely damage their electoral fortunes in November.
For Shinseki himself it is a poignant end to what was a distinguished career that began in the jungles of Vietnam, where he was twice-wounded, and ended in the almost equally dangerous environment of Washington. He garnered attention in 2003 when he flatly dismissed the notion before Congress that postwar Iraq would be a cakewalk to govern. His remarks sent the Bush administration into overdrive to debunk him. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a news conference, "The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far off the mark," In one of his most notorious appearances on Capitol Hill, deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz declared that Shinseki had it all wrong. According to Wolfowitz,

We have no idea what we will need until we get there on the ground. Every time we get a briefing on the war plan, it immediately goes down six different branches to see what the scenarios look like. If we costed each and every one, the costs would range from $10 billion to $100 billion.
Oops.
To his credit, Shinseki did not back down from his remarks. He was essentially frozen out for them by the Bush administration. Shinseki became a hero to the left. Obama sought to rehabilitate and reward him for the mettle he had displayed by appointing him head of the VA. It was an imprudent choice. Shinseki didn't turn out to be a bad man but an incompetent one.
Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/blog/jacob-heilbrunn/obamas-dangerous-scandal-the-va-10571

Could Tensions in the South China Sea Spark a War?

Could Tensions in the South China Sea Spark a War?

05/31/14
Abraham M. Denmark
Security, Asia

And by the way...Washington could get dragged in. 

In the South China Sea, China’s ambitious “nine-dash line” claim of sovereignty has been disputed by several other claimants, relations have in recent weeks turned remarkably chillier. Vietnam and the Philippines are facing the brunt of Beijing’s ire, and the potential for crisis and conflict is significant. Positions are hardening, willingness to compromise is low, and the fact that the Philippines is an ally of the United States raises the potential for a disastrous crisis and potential conflict between the U.S. and China.
The clash between China and Vietnam has attracted more attention in recent days. Just a few days after President Obama’s visit to the region, a Chinese mobile oil rig took position in a carefully selected site that, while closer to the Vietnam mainland than China’s Hainan Island, is just fourteen nautical miles from Chinese-occupied island, a part of the Paracel Island group that is claimed by both China and Vietnam. China sent a large flotilla of ships to escort the derrick; a group that included several armed Naval vessels. After Hanoi expressed outrage at this action and violence against Chinese nationals across Vietnam, Beijing expanded the escort flotilla to over 100 ships. Most recently, Chinese ships interdicted, rammed, and sunk a Vietnamese fishing vessel that was challenging the derrick. Vietnam claims that four ships were attacked in all, and now there are reportedly 113 ships standing off against sixty Vietnamese vessels.
Similar incidents have played out in recent months between China and the Philippines. After China took effective control over the Scarborough Shoal in 2012, Beijing seemed to set its sights on the Second Thomas Shoal—a small land formation about 105 nautical miles from the Philippines but is claimed by both countries. To buttress its claim, the Philippines in 1999 intentionally beached the hospital ship Sierra Madre on the reef and has maintained a small crew on the beached craft ever since (see an exceptional piece about the sailors on the ship and the broader dispute by the New York Times here). Most recently, the Philippines arrested a group of Chinese fishermen found 70 miles from the Philippines near Half Moon Shoal with a ship filled with endangered (and valuable) turtles.
Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/feature/could-tensions-the-south-china-sea-spark-war-10572

Barack Obama's Foreign Policy Dilemma

Barack Obama's Foreign Policy Dilemma
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.comhttp://original.antiwar.com/justin/2014/05/29/barack-obamas-foreign-policy-dilemma/

Snowden Would Not Get a Fair Trial

Snowden Would Not Get a Fair Trial
John Kerry is wrong, says Daniel Ellsberg
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/daniel-ellsberg-snowden-fair-trial-kerry-espionage-act

Tomgram: Pepe Escobar, Who's Pivoting Where in Eurasia?

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog//175845/

Return to TomDispatch Home

Tomgram: Pepe Escobar, Who's Pivoting Where in Eurasia?
Posted by Pepe Escobar, May 18, 2014.

Consider this: our advanced robotic creatures, those drone aircraft grimly named Predators and Reapers, are still blowing away human beings from Yemen to Pakistan.  Meanwhile, the Pentagon is now testing out a 14,000-pound drone advanced enough to take off and land on its own on the deck of an aircraft carrier -- no human pilot involved.  (As it happens, it’s only a "demonstrator" and, at a cost of $1.4 billion, can’t do much else.)  While we’re talking about the skies, who could forget that the U.S. military is committed to buying 2,400 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, already dubbed, amid cost overruns of every sort, "the most expensive weapons system in history."  The bill for them: nearly $400 billion or twice what it cost to put a man on the moon.

The Harvard Spring by Syrian Senior Orator Sarah Abushaar

The Harvard Spring by Syrian Senior Orator Sarah Abushaar
linkis.com/youtu.be/TBuWO

Directive No. 3025.18 [PDF]: "Defense Support of Civil Authorities"



Directive No. 3025.18 [PDF]: "Defense Support of Civil Authorities," Dec. 29, 2010
“Federal military commanders are provided EMERGENCY AUTHORITY under this Directive. Federal military forces shall not be used to quell civil disturbances unless specifically authorized by the President in accordance with applicable law.. In these circumstances, those Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances…”http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/302518p.pdf

DoD Directive Grants Military Authority to ‘Quell Large-scale, Unexpected Civil Disturbances’

DoD Directive Grants Military Authority to ‘Quell Large-scale, Unexpected Civil Disturbances’

Militarization of federal agencies across the board puts everyday Americans square in the crosshairs

http://www.infowars.com/dod-directive-grants-military-authority-to-quell-large-scale-unexpected-civil-disturbances/

Obama Considered Using Military Against Bundy and Supporters

Obama Considered Using Military Against Bundy and Supporters

Pentagon directive authorizes use of federal troops and drones in violation of Posse Comitatus
by Kurt Nimmo | Infowars.com
http://www.infowars.com/obama-considered-using-military-against-bundy-and-supporters/

Edward Snowden Interview with NBC Brian Williams



Edward Snowden Interview with NBC Brian Williams

Video

Edward Snowden, blamed the State Department for stranding him in Russia, saying he "never intended" to wind up there.

Inside the Ring: Memo outlines Obama’s plan to use the military against citizens

   Inside the Ring: Memo outlines Obama’s plan to use the military against citizens 
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/28/inside-the-ring-directive-outlines-obamas-policy-t/

Friday, May 30, 2014

Bloomberg's Harvard Commencement Speech.

Shamus Cooke: The Democrats’ New Fake Populism

Shamus Cooke: The Democrats’ New Fake Populism
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/05/30-5

Dean Baker: Why Is It So Acceptable to Lie to Promote Trade Deals?

Dean Baker: Why Is It So Acceptable to Lie to Promote Trade Deals?
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/05/30-4

Juan Cole: Mr. Kerry: Why Snowden Can’t 'Make his Case' in 'Our System of Justice'

Juan Cole: Mr. Kerry: Why Snowden Can’t 'Make his Case' in 'Our System of Justice'
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/05/30-7

Stiglitz: Tax-Dodging, Corporate Welfare Destroying US Economy

Stiglitz: Tax-Dodging, Corporate Welfare Destroying US Economy
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/05/30-7

Snowden and NSA Go Tête-à-Tête over Internal Emails

Snowden and NSA Go Tête-à-Tête over Internal Emails
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/05/30

Health-care fraud in America That’s where the money is


Health-care fraud in America

That’s where the money is

How to hand over $272 billion a year to criminals


http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21603026-how-hand-over-272-billion-year-criminals-thats-where-money

US Should Support ICC Jurisdiction in Palestine


 
Published in The Hill
 
US Should Support ICC Jurisdiction in Palestine
Bill Van Esveld
May 29, 2014
Secretary of State John Kerry called the collapse of the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks “reality-check time” for the peace process. That reassessment should include the self-defeating U.S. policy of opposing steps toward justice and accountability in the name of negotiations. 

Was the Iranian threat fabricated by Israel and the U.S.?

Was the Iranian threat fabricated by Israel and the U.S.?

In a new book and in a conversation with Haaretz, U.S. historian Gareth Porter charges that U.S. and Israeli policies on Iran have been based on fabricated evidence.

Why America Needs Good Spies Like the CIA's Robert Ames

Graham E. Fuller Former vice chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council; author, 'Turkey and the Arab Spring: Leadership in the Middle East'

Why America Needs Good Spies Like the CIA's Robert Ames

I've just been sitting up all night reading "The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames," a fascinating biography by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Kai Bird. Ames was a remarkable CIA officer -- and a colleague -- who played a key personal role in U.S. intelligence and policymaking on the Palestinian-Israeli issue between the 1970s and 1980s. Ames died in 1983 in a massive blast at the American Embassy in Beirut when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden truck into the entryway.

Shinseki Resigns

http://www.defenseone.com/newsletters/issue/defenseone/defense-one-breaking-news/1005886/

WPR Articles May 26, 2014 - May 30, 2014


 

WPR Articles May 26, 2014 - May 30, 2014

After Ukraine, Limited Prospects for U.S.-Russian Security Cooperation

By: Richard Weitz | Column
I spent part of last week in Russia, giving a talk at the Moscow Carnegie Center on U.S.-Russia security cooperation after Ukraine, and attending a security conference organized by the Russian Defense Ministry. The difference between the two audiences was striking, and in the end, only a few opportunities for near-term cooperation were identified, most notably regarding Afghanistan and Iran’s nuclear program.

Venezuela’s Ideologically Diverse Opposition Faces Coordination Challenges

By: The Editors | Trend Lines
Venezuela has faced months of opposition protests as international mediation efforts have proved inconclusive. In an email interview, Michael McCarthy, a professorial lecturer of Latin American politics at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, explained the diverse constituencies the opposition represents.
 

Factions in U.S., Iran Continue to Dispute Purpose of Talks

By: Eric Auner | Trend Lines
Representatives from the U.S.-led P5+1 countries and Iran met earlier this month for talks on Iran’s nuclear program that observers generally agree were inconclusive. As the parties prepare for the next round in Vienna June 16-20 and the July 20 deadline for a final agreement approaches, domestic forces in both the United States and Iran are trying to affect the goals and substance of a final agreement.

South Sudan Conflict Destabilizes Ethiopia’s Regional Strategy

By: Harry Verhoeven | Briefing
Once that of an impoverished, war-torn nation, Ethiopia’s international image is now exemplified by the construction of the Renaissance Dam, Africa’s biggest infrastructure project. Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn continues to pursue his predecessor’s dream of establishing Ethiopia as a regional hegemon through energy diplomacy. But South Sudan’s conflict and its regional dimensions now threaten this vision.

Kazakhstan a Model for Ukraine in Accommodating Russia

By: Nikolas Gvosdev | Column
With chaos continuing in Ukraine, the country’s new president-elect, Petro Poroshenko, and his team might want to consider learning from how another mid-sized Eurasian state has managed its relationship with the Russian bear. This week, in a ceremony overshadowed by the events in Ukraine, Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev signed the agreements formally creating the Eurasian Economic Union with Russia.

EU Migrants Caught Between Economic Crisis and Domestic Politics

By: Nur Abdelkhaliq | Briefing
Shortly after assuming power in May 2010, the U.K. government began setting caps on immigration levels, ultimately promising to reduce net migration into the U.K. to fewer than 100,000 people per year by the 2015 general election. The focus on immigration was unsurprising. But the overlooked and crucial question was how effective a cap on immigration could be given the European Union’s free movement provisions.

Debate Over ‘Targeted Killings’ About More Than Just Terminology

By: Matt Peterson | Trend Lines
Last week’s confirmation process for David Barron, a former Obama administration lawyer nominated to the federal judiciary, reopened a debate about what has come to be known as the U.S. “targeted killing” program. Differing interpretations of the terminology at the heart of the debate speak to broader questions about the future of the American war on terror.

Details of China-Russia Gas Deal Put ‘Historic’ Agreement in Perspective

By: Thijs Van de Graaf | Briefing
On May 21, after a decade of negotiations, Russia signed a gas deal with China. The $400 billion agreement foresees the delivery of 38 bcm of Siberian gas a year to China for 30 years. Commentators were quick to call the deal “historic,” and Putin trumpeted it as “the biggest contract in the history of the gas sector of the former USSR.” But a closer look at some of the details puts the agreement in perspective.

Is America Losing the Capability to Fight a Major War?

By: Steven Metz | Column
Throughout history, Americans have expected and planned for short wars. Today is no exception: The U.S. military’s war games almost all plan for relatively short wars or operations. But while it would probably succeed against another third-rate military or transnational terrorist movement, it is not clear that America would or could undertake a length major war to reverse aggression by another great power.

Egypt’s Passion Wanes for Its New President

By: Frida Ghitis | Column
A funny thing happened on the way to the apotheosis of Egypt’s next president: The adoring crowds stayed home. The former military leader, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, was supposed to win a landslide victory with support from a public that had given every indication of burning with passion for him. But el-Sissi’s coronation appears less enthusiastic than he had hoped, and that will have implications for his rule.

India’s Modi Takes a Step Toward New Era of Relations With Pakistan

By: Rupakjyoti Borah | Briefing
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi scored his first diplomatic coup by receiving Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at his swearing-in ceremony Monday. The fact that Sharif came shows his willingness to stand up to Pakistan’s hard-liners in an effort to normalize relations with India. For his part, Modi may be better positioned than his predecessor to work toward a new era of India-Pakistan relations.
 

DARPA Program Seeks to Use Brain Implants to Control Mental Illness | MIT Technology Review

DARPA Program Seeks to Use Brain Implants to Control Mental Illness | MIT Technology Review

Can Obamacare's Narrow Networks Really Be Good for Patients?

Can Obamacare's Narrow Networks Really Be Good for Patients?
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/fieldclinic/Can-Obamacares-Narrow-Networks-Really-Be-Good-for-Patients.html#j869WkOQB5EktRJA.99

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/fieldclinic/Can-Obamacares-Narrow-Networks-Really-Be-Good-for-Patients.html

Pope Francis in Palestine




Pope Francis touches the separation wall, May 25, 2014. (AP Photo/Osservatore Romano)
This article is a joint publication of TheNation.com and Foreign Policy In Focus.

The information wars

 
 

The information wars



The US government continues its efforts to clamp down on leaks of classified information.

Obama’s West Point Realism The president defends a George H.W. Bush foreign policy against George W. Bush critics.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/obamas-west-point-realism/

The American Conservative

Obama’s West Point Realism

The president defends a George H.W. Bush foreign policy against George W. Bush critics.


I watched President Barack Obama’s address to the graduating cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Wednesday, then read and re-read the transcript of the speech that outlined his foreign policy doctrine. I was reminded of why I voted for him twice and not for his Republican presidential rivals.
Just imagine what the current situation would be if John McCain or Mitt Romney, not Obama, occupied the White House. My guess is that U.S. troops would still be engaged in combat in Iraq on the side of the theocratic and pro-Iran regime in Baghdad, and that the Republican president would have refrained from declaring, as Obama did on Wednesday, that U.S. forces Afghanistan would fall to zero at the end of 2016 even if the situation in that country remained unstable. And you don’t have to be a psychic to imagine President McCain reliving the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis as he sends an ultimatum to Iran to dispose of its nuclear program and U.S. aircraft carriers move towards the Strait of Hormuz. And then consider the image of President Romney, consulting with his neoconservative foreign policy aides (Robert Kagan? John Bolton?) and with former Vice President Dick Cheney on devising a strategy of “regime change” in Damascus, and working together with our Polish and Japanese allies in preparation for cold or hot wars with Russia and China.

Get Ready World: The U.S.-Russian Rivalry Is Back

Get Ready World: The U.S.-Russian Rivalry Is Back

And it could get ugly.
May 28, 2014 in

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/get-ready-world-the-us-russian-rivalry-back-10545?page=show

Israel Eavesdropped on President Clinton’s Diplomatic Phone Calls

NEWSWEEK

Israel Eavesdropped on President Clinton’s Diplomatic Phone Calls

Thoughts on Edward Snowden’s Interview By Benjamin Wittes

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/05/thoughts-on-edward-snowdens-interview/

Hard National Security Choices

Thoughts on Edward Snowden’s Interview

By
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Let’s give Edward Snowden his due: He did himself a lot of good in his interview with NBC’s Brian Williams, which aired last night. He presents well, coming across as earnest, thoughtful and intelligent. There is no manic gleam in his eye, no evident hatred of his country. He is well-spoken and articulate. He presents his own case more compellingly than does Glenn Greenwald, who speaks with a barely-suppressed rage much of the time—and an altogether unsuppressed hostility all of the time. Snowden, by contrast, is cool and measured, his affect cerebral. Where Greenwald and Julian Assange talk about NSA as an evil monolith, Snowden talks about how he misses his former colleagues, whom he regards as good people. He gamely objects to their vilification. I have no doubt that his performance will move many viewers, who will see—as he clearly does—nobility in his sacrifices, purity in his motives, and honor in his decision to defy the law in some larger defense of morality as he sees it.
Yet I was unmoved by Snowden’s performance.

Obama Should Not Let Europe Slip Away


The Washington Post (May 29, 2014)
Obama Should Not Let Europe Slip Away

By Bruce Ackerman

at

In his West Point speech Wednesday, President Obama remained trapped by the paradigm that has governed our foreign policy since the fall of the Berlin Wall. From the first Gulf War to the ongoing conflict in Syria, the United States has endlessly debated how and whether to intervene to defeat aggression and protect human rights. Obama responded by charting a moderate course between the past decade’s military interventionism and the easy answers of isolationism.

For Israel: The Worst of Times...and the Best of Times

05/29/14
Jonathan Adelman
Security, Israel
Israel faces an array of threats unknown since 1973.  
The Iranian nuclear program existentially threatens Israel because of its small size (8,000 square miles), concentration in three cities, nearness to Iran (700 miles from its missile bases), and limitations to anti-missile defense. Israel faces significant threats on its Lebanese border (Hezbollah) and Gazan border (Hamas) plus possible threats from its Syrian border (jihadists) and eastern border (possible Hamas-dominated West Bank).
But it is also the best of times. Israel has developed strong relationships with three of the four BRIC countries (India, Russia and China). The Indian electoral victory of Narendra Modi, who has visited Israel and worked with Israeli companies in Gujarat, will likely lead to a $15 billion a year free trade zone. Israel is a leading military supplier to India and works with that country on rockets and counter-intelligence. Last year an Israeli company and Swiss company agreed to build two semiconductor fabrication plants in India worth over $10 billion.
Russia is another partner. Israel is negotiating a free-trade agreement with Russia, which would triple trade to $6 billion by 2024. Israel commercializes products at the Skolkovo high-tech zone and sells UAVs to Russia. It refused to condemn Russia over Ukraine at the United Nations.
While Vladimir Putin has visited Israel twice, Bibi Netanyahu has visited Moscow five times. Putin allowed a Jewish museum in Moscow, condemned anti-Semitism in Ukraine and cancelled the S-300 sale for the Iranian nuclear program. Every week thousands of Israelis travel to Russia to do business.
As for China, Bibi Netanyahu and Shimon Peres recently visited Beijing while PLA Chief of Staff Chen Bingle (2011) and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (2013) visited Israel. Bilateral trade will shortly reach $10 billion. In Shantou, Technion will open its first foreign high-tech school.
While Israel has problems with these powers over Iran, it has built good relations with all of them.
Israel’s relationship with the United States remains strong in military and intelligence. Technion was chosen by Cornell to help run its new Manhattan high-tech zone.  Israel, despite issues, has joined the €77 billion 2020 EU Horizon Project of Research and Development.
In the inner circle, Egypt and Jordan remain unthreatening and Syria, badly weakened by civil war, poses little threat.
Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/israel-the-worst-timesand-the-best-times-10560

The Seven Faces of Barack Obama

The Seven Faces of Barack Obama

05/29/14
Daniel R. DePetris
Grand Strategy, United States

In a speech that was designed to clarify his foreign policy, Obama may have done the opposite.

The last time President Barack Obama gave a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, it was December 1, 2009.  At that time, the war in Afghanistan was the only foreign policy issue that Americans across the country could talk about.  The war by most indications was going badly, or at least not well enough, fast enough, and President Obama had to make a monumental decision at a pivotal moment in his young presidency: whether to send tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops to the war zone.  In front of a national audience and thousands of West Point cadets—some of whom would be deployed to Afghanistan in the future (and four of whom would be killed serving the country)—Obama doubled down on a counterinsurgency-counterterrorism hybrid strategy that he labeled at the time as the best option the United States could take to beat back a resurgent Taliban insurgency.
Over four years later, President Obama returned to West Point with Afghanistan looking a whole lot different (just a day earlier, Obama announced in the Rose Garden that practically all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by 2016) and with a different goal in mind: defending his foreign policy record.
To the president’s supporters, Obama said what he needed to say to fight back against Republican critics in the U.S. Congress and some within the Washington foreign policy establishment who have been complaining about his administration’s lack of focus in world affairs.  To some, like frequent critics John McCain and Ed Royce, Obama’s address was more of the same: long on rhetoric, short on action.
But neither side has it quite right. The real problem with president Obama’s commencement address to West Point’s latest graduating class is that it was a perfect microcosm of his many personalities and traits as Commander-in-Chief.  Obama may have hoped to lay out a broad vision of the world for the rest of his term, but in doing so, he exhibited the multiple faces, attitudes, and approaches to the world that has defined his presidency for the past five and a half years. The result has been confusion.
Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-seven-faces-barack-obama-10561

Obama Wants Allies to Share the Burden. It Won't Happen.



Obama Wants Allies to Share the Burden. It Won't Happen.

05/30/14
Christopher A. Preble
International Institutions, NATO, Defense, Europe, Asia, United States

America's friends won't take more responsibility for their own defense if we don't make them.

In his West Point speech this week, President Obama vowed to encourage America’s allies to shoulder more of the burden in dealing with international problems and providing for their own defense. Unfortunately, this is far-fetched unless Obama acts to reduce America’s global military commitments.
Obama’s speech will not satisfy the harshest critics of his foreign policy, but, in fairness, no speech was likely to do that. If the critics were expecting him to, for example, recant his opposition to sending U.S. troops into the middle of brutal civil wars, they were sure to be disappointed.
But a dramatic change in U.S. foreign policy dedicated to the use of force to advance U.S. interests was unlikely because there are real constraints on the United States’ ability to use force. And Barack Obama must fashion a policy within those constraints.
The speech revealed the limits of U.S. military power. Indeed, in a line sure to enrage Iraq war proponents, Obama explained, “some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint, but from our willingness to rush into military adventures—without thinking through the consequences...or leveling with the American people about the sacrifice required.”
While the speech won’t appeal to those anxious for the U.S. military to become engaged in a range of new conflicts, however, it may be equally disappointing to a public hungry for a different foreign policy that keeps us out of reckless wars.
Even if President Obama were inclined to send the U.S. military on more missions around the world, he knows that the American people are not so inclined. He learned that the hard way after he drew an ill-advised red line before Syria’s Bashar Assad, and then was forced into a humiliating retreat when the public rose up in opposition.
The president intends to avoid a repeat of that particular debacle, as he made clear in his speech, by calling on other countries to step forward. He pledged to “coordinate with our friends and allies in Europe and the Arab world...and make sure that those countries, and not just the United States, are contributing their fair share of support to the Syrian people.”
Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/feature/obama-wants-allies-share-the-burden-it-wont-happen-10562

Barack Obama Gets Realistic at West Point

Barack Obama Gets Realistic at West Point

05/30/14
James Joyner
The Presidency, United States

Breaking down the president's remarks could result in an interesting conclusion.

In December 2009, not quite a year into office, President Barack Obama addressed the cadets at West Point to announce the Afghan surge. Faced with political goals that were unachievable given the time and resources available as well as strong pressure from his hand-selected field commander, General Stanley McCrystal, and congressional Republicans, he ordered in another 30,000 troops to support a more aggressive counterterrorism posture while simultaneously announcing that the war effort world end in 2014. It was the worst possible strategic decision, but one that provided political cover.
On Wednesday, Obama returned to West Point to give another speech, this time to graduates of a class that had yet to enter the academy in 2009. His foreign policy has matured significantly over the years.
He declared, correctly, that "by most measures, America has rarely been stronger relative to the rest of the world." As has been true—but often ignored—for going on a quarter century, "Our military has no peer. The odds of a direct threat against us by any nation are low and do not come close to the dangers we faced during the Cold War." While some might quibble with his assertions that "our economy remains the most dynamic on Earth; our businesses the most innovative," it's inarguable that our economy remains the most powerful. Additionally, he rightly noted, "Each year, we grow more energy independent. From Europe to Asia, we are the hub of alliances unrivaled in the history of nations. America continues to attract striving immigrants."
It's also true, although perhaps not an unalloyed good, that "when a typhoon hits the Philippines, or schoolgirls are kidnapped in Nigeria, or masked men occupy a building in Ukraine, it is America that the world looks to for help."
From there, Obama transitioned to an odd straw man: "Today, according to self-described realists, conflicts in Syria or Ukraine or the Central African Republic are not ours to solve." The president declared that "in the 21st century American isolationism is not an option. We don't have a choice to ignore what happens beyond our borders."
Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/feature/barack-obama-gets-realistic-west-point-10563

A Middle East Tragedy: Obama's Syria-Policy Disaster

A Middle East Tragedy: Obama's Syria-Policy Disaster

05/30/14
Flynt Leverett , Hillary Mann Leverett
Security, Syria

"How many more Syrians need to die before Washington rethinks its policy?"     

For over three years, the United States has sought to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by supporting an Al Qaeda-infused opposition that Washington either knew or should have known would fail. Yet, in his commencement address at West Point on Wednesday, President Obama promised the American people and the rest of the world more of the same.         
Obama’s vague pledge to “ramp up” support for selected oppositionists is a craven sop to those claiming that U.S. backing for the opposition so far—nonlethal aid, training opposition fighters, coordination with other countries openly providing lethal aid, and high-level political backing (including three years of public demands from Obama that Assad “must go”)—has been inadequate, and that Assad could be removed if only America would do more. This claim should be decisively rejected as a basis for policy making, rather than disingenuously humored, for it is dangerously detached from reality.
Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/feature/middle-east-tragedy-obamas-syria-policy-disaster-10565

How to Start a Civil War in Ukraine (and How to Avoid One)




How to Start a Civil War in Ukraine (and How to Avoid One)

05/30/14
Robert W. Merry
Security, Ukraine

Contrary to some interpretations of unfolding events, it isn’t possible for Ukraine to join the West while coexisting peacefully with Russia.

Buried near the bottom of the Wall Street Journal’s Tuesday editorial on the Ukrainian elections was this sentence: “Sunday’s vote showed that Ukrainians want to join the West while co-existing peacefully with Russia.” There are two problems with this. First, it is far from clear that this was the underlying civic sentiment expressed in the elections. Second, even if the Journal’s reading of the vote is correct, it isn’t remotely possible for Ukraine to join the West while coexisting peacefully with Russia.
If Ukraine’s electoral winner, Petro Poroshenko, is going to succeed, he must correctly dissect the vote, and the stakes posed by this challenge are immense. As the Journal notes, the “chance for civil war is real,” and avoidance of such bloodshed will require a delicate balancing act and an uncommon deftness in knitting disparate political sentiments, passions and interests into a governing coalition. If he takes the Journal’s position—that the election settled with finality the question of Ukraine’s tragic dual identity—he almost inevitably will unleash that civil war.
As I have emphasized in these spaces over the past several months, Ukraine is what the late Samuel Huntington called a cleft country”, split between a European-oriented, nationalist region in the west and a Russian-oriented, largely Orthodox-influenced region in the east. Since Ukraine’s independence at the end of the Cold War, no Ukrainian politician has been able to bridge the gap between these two regions and these two cultural sensibilities. Electoral results over the years have reflected this dual identity—and also reflected the consequent inability of any population segment to impose, through politics, its cultural identity upon the nation as a whole.
Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-start-civil-war-ukraine-how-avoid-one-10567

The Indian Ocean: A Great-Power Danger Zone? | The National Interest


Five years ago, Robert D. Kaplan detailed the promise and the peril of this vital part of the globe. Will it be a source of tension or trust in the 21st century?   

In 2009, emblazoned in large red letters on the cover of Foreign Affairs were the words “Rivalry in the Indian Ocean.” In this featured article, Robert D. Kaplan announced to the Western world the growing importance of a long-neglected geographic entity in the study of international politics. His essay, “Center Stage for the 21st Century: Power Plays in the Indian Ocean” continues to be cited in countless articles and paved the way for his 2010 book, Monsoon. Kaplan’s contribution was to explain the civilizational and political connections of disparate Asian, African and Middle Eastern players in the Indian Ocean. Although Robert Kaplan’s recent work examines the South China Sea, his influential 2009 article on Chinese-Indian competition in the Indian Ocean and U.S. interests in the region deserves to be revisited on its five-year anniversary.
In 2009, Kaplan saw energy security and geopolitics converging in the Indian Ocean. Because roughly two-thirds of petroleum traffic traverses this body of water, it will become increasingly important to numerous stakeholders, whose interests and infrastructure projects he detailed. Other than the United States, the countries commanding most of Kaplan’s attention were India and China. Given their size and growing dependence on the sea lanes for energy supplies and trade, Kaplan saw an inevitable geopolitical “great game” rivalry emerging in the Indian Ocean. As a solution, he argued that the United States should “act as a broker” to mitigate the likelihood of conflict between these two rising economic and military powerhouses, even though he foresaw the superpower as experiencing an unavoidable “elegant decline.”


The Indian Ocean: A Great-Power Danger Zone? | The National Interest

The Week with IPS 5/30


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